Pearl Harbor

Rating:
Summary: GREAT ACTION, DUMB LOVE TRIANGLE
Review: To coincide with the 6oth anniversary of the sneak Japanese attack against American assets, the Disney machine releases the two-disc "PEARL HARBOR" (Touchstone), it's gargantuan recreation of the horrific incident that sealed our involvement in WW II.

Set against a sophomoric and predictable love triangle (Ben Afflect, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsdale), the stunning CGI enhanced invasion and the heartstopping flying sequences are all the more impressive. The Disney team had high hopes of duplicating the success of "Titanic" with what they thought were the same key ingredients but on an even larger scale. But alas, the critics and public did not respond in kind.

What made "Titanic" so universally popular had to do with the idea of seeking love in a perfect world that suddenly is doomed. Is there something in our collective subconscious that understands that? After all, our time here is brief at best. "Pearl Harbor" does not connect on that delicate, spiritual level but certainly delivers the action. The magnificent looking film on this double disc set is artistically packaged in faux worn leather binder and is further wrapped in self importance with a great History Channel documentary "Unsung Heroes" and a fine making of supplement. Disney will further exploit the vulnerable DVD collector when it releases the definitive director's cut next May. That one will have Michael Bay's commentary. Is anyone actually waiting?

Rating:
Summary: Unsteady mix of love and war...
Review: All the pieces were in place for a fantastic, unsparing, brutal masterpiece: a tremendous budget, good cast, "unprecendented" help on location and details by the U.S. Army and Navy, more than 70 interviews with survivors of December 7th, and at the helm, the dynamic Bay/Bruckheimer duo of bust-em-up, shoot-em-up glossy action flicks. Unfortunately, such things thrown together do not always a masterpiece make. It has been said that any movie about such an event should shake you to the bone, but of course if you have seen this movie by now, I doubt that has happened. That is not to say the film is unsuccessful-- it is without doubt entertaining, even if American audiences found it so for the wrong reasons-- not recognizing the free play of Hollywood love and war tropes as a sort of homage to earlier films in the genre. But perhaps it is a significant commentary on our slick, dare-not-to-be-anything-less-than-sophisticated age, that this film seems not to succeed at the most crucial points: the drama and history and grandeur of the tragedy and horror nestling at the heart of this very real and quite harrowing event. As it has been pointed out, the film's grasp of the political and social subjects involving December 7th are hazy and perhaps even naive. However, this isn't the point. Like a crackpot poet hellbent on tickling your heartstrings, this movie is not attempting to stimulate you intellectually or morally-- it is there for emotion's sake. This is the level, finally, where it takes flight: the portrayal of the heroes and heroines behind the scenes, the ones we never see or hear, but are only subtly hinted or footnoted in our high school Western Civilization classes-- the captains and admirals and so forth whose contribution to the events playing out on that day that have not been recorded. It is this sense of a "lost" American history that are powerful for us, and certainly more so than the stock love triangle occupying the movie's first third.

Technically the dvd is quite nice, although I am disappointed the movie's final hour was put on the second disc rather than allowing it to continue from start to finish, something easy to do considering a dvd can indeed hold a 183 minute film. The extra History Channel documentary in a "commemmorative" edition is of course essential, and in the video for the song from the soundtrack Faith Hill tries her darndest at doing a Celine.

All in all a good film but not a great one, a painful yet oddly palatable display of a vision out of a nightmare Sunday morning. I HIGHLY recommend the film "When Lions Roar" for anyone interested in historical details in a film about WWII. And John Lithgow does a better FDR than Voight anyway.

Rating:
Summary: great movie
Review: Pearl harbor is a terrific movie.I went to see it twice with my mom and brother.I hope I get it for Christmas or my birthday.My mom ans brother thought it was a great movie.My brother really is picky about movies to!!!So ignore all those terrible reviews and go buy Pearl Harbor!!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Better than I thought it would be!
Review: This is actually a movie worth checking out. Although I probably would have been bored sitting in the theater without a break, when my boyfriend and I rented this we thought it was pretty good. The best part of this movie is the flying sequences. It did have a bit of "Armageddon"-ness to it but, you know, sometimes you just want to enjoy a movie and not have to be so super critical of it. For those times, this is definitely a pleasure to see.
The movie is wonderful to look at, and the scenes, although perhaps not as raw and vivid as "Saving Private Ryan", are beautifully choreographed and, yes, perhaps a little hollywood glittery - but hey, there's something to say about glitter. It ain't all that bad. Kate Beckinsale, Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett are very well cast in this movie; there is no lack of chemistry and very little cheesy dialogue. Furthermore, in times like these it feels good to see how heroic our soldiers are. God Bless America.

Rating:
Summary: A film of EPIC proportions! Nice job!
Review: This film is in the same league as 'The Titanic', production-wise, treatment-wise, and quality-wise. Sonics are stunning, given the THX soundtrack, and what appears to be meticulous digital mastering, and the video quality is equally phenomenal. I would even venture to say it is state of the art DVD reference quality, especially viewed on a larger hi-res HDTV ready screen. This was a perfect melding of love story meets the fury of war! OK, 3 hours is WAY too long for a movie (Hollywood should stick to 2 hour flicks), but I managed to enjoy this movie for what it tried to portray, mainly a human element amidst all the carnage and death raining down from above. The special effects are stunning, and all in all, I would rate this a solid 5 stars, given this film's tour-de-force production, and the accuracy of it. Rent this one if you want to give your DVD player/TV a workout!

Rating:
Summary: Sweet DVD
Review: Don't listen to these gloomy geeks who say this movie isnt any good just because it has a love story, the love story just adds to the emotional value of this awesome movie, it makes you pround to call yourself an american. The actions sequences are great. You really need to experience this dvd widescreen style on a bigscreen its great. Once again the love story makes you want to cry, its great. with out it the movie wouldnt be the same. dont listen to them its a great movie. check it out. its definately worth the purchase. Also God bless our brave heros overseas and at home. thanks

Rating:
Summary: Good techincal; bad content
Review: Techincal achievements:
=======================
- Visual effects are excellent. Color contrast and clarity are well above average. Some perspectives, like that of dog-fights among the fighter planes and exploded fighters in mid-air, were nicely done in terms of its intended effect. Some visual effects are also borrowed from Titanic.
- Audio effects are also well above average, although certain techiques, like that of incoming bullets arriving, is not novel and has been done in Private Ryan before.

Story & content
===============
- Catering more for teenage romanticism, care-free and impulsive.
- Acting abilities: 2.4/5.0
- Dialogs: 2.0/5.0
- Plot: nothing impressive

Rating:
Summary: A waste of time & money...
Review: A terrible movie -- insulting and offensive. From the guys who brought us 'Armageddon' -- a film that I enjoyed simply because it was a big ridiculous thrill ride with just the right blend of cheese and FX. 'Pearl Harbor' is made with the same formula (and one of the same actors, Ben "Get me to a damn plane!" Affleck, who is nothing but an overgrown frat boy strutting for the camera), but it fails because when you put a name, face and race on a metaphorical asteroid and call it the Japanese, the fun disappears and the slurs begin (I stopped counting the times I heard "damn Japs"). Yes, the FX are great, but it's Titantic territory revisited, and after a while you're yawning your way through yet another extra flailing in the water, yet another explosion, etc. They should have made the battles scenes into a one hour reenactment for cable and cut out the rest of the film -- the hour before and the hour after the attack are incredibly predictable and full of pandering, formulaic cheese. The love story is disjointed and the characters are cartoons -- Affleck is his usual brawny mess, Josh Harnett puts forth a decent young-Tommy-Lee-Jones effort but can't save his doomed Danny, and Kate Beckinsale pulls a Kate Winslet by hopping from a respected place on the international/independent circuit to an unfortunate hair-and-makeup turn in a disaster blockbuster (Winslet has barely recovered from "the boat film"... let's cross our fingers for poor Beckinsale, who shouldn't be wasting her time with stuff like this). Why Cuba Gooding, Jr. chose to take part at all is beyond me. Dan Ackroyd, on the other hand, is right up his own alley as the Navy Intelligence man who saw it coming -- in real life, Ackroyd is the Alien Intelligence man who is waiting for an extraterrestrial encounter so that he can tell us he told us so... so I think he had some fun. As for Alec Baldwin, he's on the fast track to becoming one of the worst actors of all time, and Jon Voight is apparently trying to add historical charicatures to his resume (he's following his cartoon Roosevelt with another study in prosthetics as Howard Cosell in 'Ali'). 'Pearl Harbor' rips off many other disaster/war films from 'Titanic' to 'Top Gun', and is nothing more than a great big mess. I don't condemn it completely because of Hartnett's effort, the FX, and James King, who makes an easy, natural step from highly succesful model to competent actress (her Betty is one of the few characters you actually feel something for, spared simply because she wasn't given the screen time to become a cartoon). Otherwise, I would actively discourage any thinking filmgoer from suffering through this movie. Mike & Jerry should stick to asteroids.

Rating:
Summary: This DVD is awesome!!
Review: I just bought this DVD, and it's great! I truly enjoyed the film. The DVD is nothin short of amazing. The picture quality, sound, and special effects are really nice. I still don't see why people compare this movie to "Titanic" though. I mean, just cuz it has a love story with disaster?? That happens all the time. Plus, in the making of the movie, the fictional characters (Ben, Josh, Kate) are all BASED on TRUE and real people and things that actually happened and lived during this time. It's not hard to imagine a pilot or army commander falling in love with a nurse. That kind of stuff happened all the time back then.

The only thing I will compare this movie to Titanic with is how this movie AND Titanic really made me actually FEEL like I was back in that time period. It was amazing. Micheal Bay did something that was kind of hard to do, which is give people a sense of being in the 1940's.

Really, I don't think that Pearl Harbor's video/dvd release was trying to capitalize on patriotism in line of these past recent events we've had in our own country. The Dec 4th release date was talked about LONG before the Sept. 11th events. If anything, the release date was supposed to sort of coincide with the actual BOMBING date (Dec. 7th). That's like saying that all these new car commercials we have are capitalizing on Patriotism. ANd you KNOW they are. "Oh great, we're in a war, now's the time to buy more American CARS!!" THAT'S pathetic if you ask me.

I guess there will always be haters and likers of this movie. I personally enjoyed it. But if you want, I'd pick up this DVD, it really is nice.

Last note: this movie isn't like Saving Private Ryan, or Glory, or even Tora Tora Tora. Those movies just focused more on the WAR aspect of that time. I wouldn't really call Pearl Harbor a WAR film in that sense. But I think that it focused mainly on Pearl Harbor. Wich is why this film isn't called "The A-bomb", or "How America Fought the Japenese", or "World War 2". No, this movie was JUST on "Pearl Harbor". So, if you want to see a REAL view of World War 2, I suggest watching the history channel. They have a lot of tapes out now since Pearl Harbor came out.

Rating:
Summary: Total surprise! The movie...eh... but the DVD....Great!!!
Review: Wow...how can I even begin to describe this. I'll tell you the truth, when I first went to see this movie (Pearl Harbor) in theaters, I was a little dissapointed. It seemed a little too corny (like someone mentioned). I mean the dialogue was past the brink of being terrible. Plus, it was too long for my taste. However, the scenery and battle scenes were excellent. Probably the best things in the movie were the battle scenes.

I was a little hesitant on buying this DVD, but my wife begged me to, so I went ahead and bought it. I figured, hey, she can watch it, I don't have to. However, I ended up watching it myself (out of curiousity).

First of all, let me comment on the DVD itself. Hard work really went into making this DVD enjoyable. For a DVD, Pearl Harbor is put remarkably well. Even the main menu screen is something to be praised. The picture quality was so crisp, I'm thinking it was probably even better than the theatrical showing. The sound was awesome!! When the bombings occured, I found myself actually wincing because the sound was SO real! I was there shaking my head in horror at all the realistic attacks. There is a ton of REAL historical footage on this DVD also. It comes well equipped with 2 disks. One disk contains the bonus material. I didn't think I would like it, but when I watched the "making of the movie", I really came to realize just how much hard work and effort came into making this movie. I hate to admit it, but I actually feel that Micheal Bay was at least TRYING to be historically accurate with telling the story (...) and re-living that eventful day which we know as Dec. 7th, 1941.

All in all, not only did the DVD come with the making of the movie, but also a History channel documentary of the REAL unsung heroes of this war. I thought that was very interesting. It was touching to see these real survivors explain what happend in thier own words. Many of them became very emotional getting flash backs to that horrible scene. I think I've had a change of opinion since our OWN recent attack on the United States on September 11th. It made me look at this film a bit differently. In conclusion, I think this movie Pearl Harbor, did what it was basically supposed to do. Which is make people remember PEARL HARBOR. It gave people sort of a glimpse into what the attacks may have looked like 60 years ago. (I'm sure the REAL attack was even worse than what we saw in this film.) In that sense, I think this movie succeeded.

Even haters of this movie will most likely find the bonus material very interesting, and even very good. The movie was actually bearable this time around. Even the veterans found this movie enjoyable.

So, basically my advice, even if you don't buy this DVD, atleast go and rent it. I think it's well worth it.